Chapter 179: Dread

She forced down the sudden wave of instinctual dread, reminding herself of the powerful artifact resting on her finger. ’I am a Year 4 student of Void Blessed Academy,’ she told herself sternly. ’I have the Ring of the Void Core active. He is just a Year 2 student, no matter how many affinities he claims to hold. I have the advantage. I am four times stronger.’

Lynx looked her up and down, offering a breathtaking, lazy smirk. "You know, you’re actually quite beautiful. Strong, sharp, and fierce. Exactly my type. It’s a shame we have to fight.

Selena blinked, caught off guard by his completely casual, flirtatious tone in the middle of an imperial tournament match.

A faint flush of pink painted her cheeks before she quickly hardened her expression. No one had ever flirted with her in the ring before. Her opponents usually stared at her with fear.

"You’re very confident, Lynx Azarion," Selena said, her voice smooth but laced with sharp edge. "Do you talk this much in every match? Or am I special?"

Lynx laughed, taking a slow step forward, his hands resting casually in his trouser pockets. "Me? Confident? Nah, I’m just realistic. I’m the most handsome, charming guy you’ll ever meet in this lifetime. It’s not arrogance if it’s just the truth. And yes, you are special. Most people don’t get two full minutes of my time."

Selena let out a sharp, amused breath, drawing her curved saber. The blade sang as it left its sheath, coated in frost. "You’re exceptionally cocky. It’s a shame. You really are very handsome. I almost feel bad about freezing your pretty face."

"It really is a shame," Lynx agreed, his heterochromatic eyes gleaming with a dangerous, playful light. "Because you had the bad luck of drawing me in round one. Wrong place, wrong time, beautiful."

The tension was high, but there was also a strange chemistry. The crowd could feel it, and they were screaming louder.

"BEGIN!" the referee shouted.

BOOM!

Selena moved instantly. She did not waste time with words.

Driven by her quadruple boosted stats, her body transformed into a blur of purple lightning and frost mist. The stone under her feet shattered from the takeoff force.

She crossed the hundred foot gap in less than a fraction of a second, her curved saber whipping through the air in a lethal, sweeping arc aimed straight for Lynx’s collarbone. The air screamed as the blade cut through it.

The blade was wrapped in dense, freezing frost intertwined with violent purple electrical arcs, a dual affinity strike designed to freeze the target’s blood while frying their nervous system. If it hit, it would end the fight instantly. It was a killing move.

Lynx didn’t draw a weapon. He didn’t even take his hands out of his pockets.

He simply tilted his head two inches to the left.

SWISH!

The lethal frost blade cut through the empty air where his neck had been a millisecond prior, the violent pressure wave slicing a deep groove into the stone floor behind him. The crowd gasped in unison.

Selena’s eyes widened in disbelief. ’He dodged it without moving his lower body?! How did he even see it coming?! My speed is four times faster than ever!’

Gritting her teeth, she activated her blade technique, executing a lightning fast combination of five consecutive slashes, each one angled toward a vital point on Lynx’s torso. She was not holding back anymore. She put all her boosted strength into it.

SWISH-SWISH-SWISH-SWISH-SWISH!

Lynx moved with terrifying, fluid elegance.

He didn’t execute heavy defensive movement, he simply swayed his upper body, stepping smoothly inside her attack radius, weaving around her lethal dual affinity strikes as if he were participating in a leisurely ballroom dance. His hands remained in his pockets the entire time.

The crowd held its collective breath, watching in absolute awe as a Year 4 Void elite student, throwing high density elemental strikes at maximum output, failed to touch a single thread of Lynx’s uniform.

"One minute," Lynx murmured casually as he casually stepped under a vertical slash, his face barely three inches from hers. He was counting down as promised.

Selena’s heart hammered against her ribs in sheer terror. The sheer difference in combat awareness was suffocating. It was like fighting a ghost.

’No! The ring is active! I have four times my baseline output! Why can’t I hit him?! This is impossible! He is just a Year 2!’

In a fit of desperation, Selena thrust her left palm straight toward Lynx’s chest, releasing her highest power. Frost Byte Nova.

A massive blast of zero degree ice energy detonated at point blank range, attempting to freeze Lynx’s entire frame solid. The temperature dropped so fast the barrier frosted over.

Lynx’s eyes flashed with a deep, volcanic crimson light.

He didn’t block the ice blast. Instead, he channeled his Fire Affinity, instantly liquifying his physical presence into an intangible blur of pure thermal energy.

The ice blast passed harmlessly through his fiery residual image, slamming into the far barrier and cracking it slightly. Steam filled the entire arena stage.

Before Selena could recover her posture, the air behind her turned scorching hot. The steam evaporated instantly.

Lynx materialized directly behind her, his right hand finally exiting his pocket, pulled back and wrapped in an unbelievable density of pure, compressed Hellfire. The heat was so intense the stone floor under his feet started to melt and turn red.

"Two minutes," Lynx whispered smoothly near her ear. "Time’s up."

BOOOOOOM!

Lynx thrust his open palm into her upper back.

The Fire Affinity strike did not pierce her flesh, but the concussive, explosive thermal shockwave detonated against her Void uniform with the force of an artillery shell.

It was controlled. He did not want to kill her. Just to end it decisively and send a message to the Void Empire people in charge watching.

Selena let out a strangled scream as she was launched forward like a projectile, flying seventy feet across the stage before crashing violently onto the stone floor, sliding all the way to the edge of the barrier ring. Her body left a long, black scorch mark on the stone.

Her curved saber clattered uselessly across the stone, spinning before it came to a stop, its frost completely melted away.

She lay on her side, coughing violently, her uniform scorched black, her insides completely scrambled by the residual heat wave. Her whole body was shaking, her were hands twitching. The obsidian ring on her finger flickered and dimmed, its crimson light fading as the overload kicked in.

She looked back at Lynx in absolute, unadulterated shock. Tears mixed with sweat on her face.

’How... how is he this strong...?’ she thought, her mind swimming as her consciousness flickered. ’I had the artifact... I was four times stronger... and he didn’t even use a named strike... He beat me with just his hands in his pockets... What kind of monster is he...?’

Lynx stood in the center of the ring, dusting off his sleeves with absolute, unbothered calm. He looked like he had not even broken a sweat. His breathing was even.

The referee stared at Selena’s downed body for three agonizing seconds before raising his hand. He checked if she could continue. She tried to lift her arm but it fell back down. She could not.

"MATCH THREE VICTOR: LYNX AZARION FROM AETHER BLESSED ACADEMY! MATCH TIME: TWO MINUTES AND TEN SECONDS!"

The entire stadium went completely insane.

Fifty thousand spectators rose to their feet, screaming Lynx’s name at the top of their lungs. The chairs shook. The air itself vibrated with their cheers. The Void citizens, who had come to see their own champions win, were now cheering for an Aether student because his dominance was so absolute it transcended empire loyalty.

The sheer display of effortless superiority, a Year 2 student casually handling a Year 4 Void veteran equipped with dual S and A rank affinities in just over two minutes, shattered every expectation the audience had held for the match.

Up in the VIP viewing boxes, high ranking Void Empire Professors and military commanders sat in complete, stunned silence. Their faces were pale, their hands gripping their armrests.

"That kid..." a senior Void Professor muttered, his hands gripping his armrests until the polished wood groaned and cracked. "Did you see his spatial re positioning? That wasn’t basic movement. He completely bypassed her spatial detection field. He moved like he was teleporting. That is Not Normal Movement."

"And her output was quadrupled by the Void Core ring," another imperial official whispered, his face darkening with fear and anger. "He didn’t just win... he played with her like a lion playing with a field mouse. We severely underestimated this anomaly. He is far more dangerous than the reports said. The headmaster needs to be informed immediately."

Up in the higher stands, Isabel was clapping slowly, a proud smile on her beautiful face. Amira was leaning forward, her eyes gleaming with something that looked like possessive pride.

Eira and Emily were screaming and jumping up and down, hugging each other.

On the arena floor, Lynx turned toward the crowd, offering a broad, charming smile as he casually raised his hand, waving to the screaming fans. He knew how to play to the crowd. He walked a slow circle around the ring, letting everyone see him.

He looked up at the higher spectator stands, blowing a cheerful kiss toward Isabel, Amira, Eira, and Emily, driving the surrounding female spectators into another wave of wild, high pitched cheering. Some threw flowers onto the stage barrier.

He stepped off the stage ramp and walked smoothly back into the Aether enclosure.

The moment he entered, Professor Henry clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder, chuckling warmly, his earlier worry completely gone. "Good work, boy. Absolutely clean. You kept your promise, two minutes and ten seconds. Ten seconds over, but we will forgive you for style points."

Professor Selene stepped up, her eyes sharp and analytical. She was already thinking about the next fight, about the tournament’s future. "What did you notice out there, Lynx? You looked like you were analyzing her gear. You were staring at her hand the whole time. You saw something, didn’t you?"

The surrounding Aether students, including Julian, Eleanor’s escorts, and the remaining students, all gathered around Lynx, eager to hear his assessment. They wanted to know how Void was getting so strong so suddenly. They crowded around him in a tight circle, their faces full of curiosity and respect.

Lynx leaned back against the enclosure barrier, a faint, dangerous smile on his handsome face. "They’re playing dirty, just like you expected. But it’s not just training. Every single Void student out there is wearing a specific artifact. It’s hidden in plain sight. And it’s not just Selena. I saw it on all of them."